Categories

Stuff

Category: Nationstates

There was a week that went by without me sending in my Nationstates moves, but I’ve been keeping up with it lately. My nation, Dryroot, recently passed 500 million people, which makes it a superpower. Well, here’s how it stands. And ignore that bit about being the third most corrupt government in the region; there are only three countries in the region, so Dryroot is the least corrupt. We haven’t swallowed up any fellow countries recently either… unlike SOME country I could name…

Nationstates is a weird little game. Although they don’t call me a dictator, everything I decide is passed, so what’s the difference? I am dismissing most issues brought to my attention because making any decision sends the nation veering off into bizarre tangents. I just KNOW that if I took any decision on the mandatory organ donation policy from this morning, that either roving bands of government agents would be lurking about at accident scenes, or millions would die from an absolute lack of donor organs.

I mean – okay, here’s the report on Dryroot from this morning:

The Democratic Republic of Dryroot is a very large, socially progressive nation, renowned for its compulsory military service. Its compassionate, intelligent population of 159 million have some civil rights, but not too many, enjoy the freedom to spend their money however they like, to a point, and take part in free and open elections, although not too often.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked morass — concentrates mainly on Education, although Defence and Commerce are secondary priorities. The average income tax rate is 42%, but much higher for the wealthy. A healthy private sector is led by the Book Publishing industry, followed by Information Technology and Trout Farming.

Legislation sometimes has to battle through weeks of filibustering to pass, Dryroot’s children are widely acknowledged as the most foul-mouthed in the region, colleges adhere to rigid ethnic quotas for admissions, and chocobos have more rights than the average citizen. Crime — especially youth-related — is moderate. Dryroot’s national animal is the chocobo and its currency is the gil.

/sigh

In WoW last night, we took on Omen, the two-headed beast who threatens the peace of the tranquil druid outpost of Moonglade, site of the annual Lunar Festival. The only things that really hurt him is the light from Elune’s Candle and beams of light that various Elders will send you after you get a coin from them.

I must have died… hmmm… I don’t know how many times. I would shine the candle at him a couple of times, DoT him, die, wait five minutes to be able to rez, repeat.

He despawned after awhile. All that for nothing. I even forgot to take screenshots.

I headed to EQ2 after, hoping to find Splitpaw Den; but the Heroines of Harm just spent the evening looking for the entrance in the Upper Tunnels. I knew nothing about Splitpaw; Dina never came, and my monk/warden team never got further than the access quest.

Splitpaw scales to the level of the group. I think Dera, at 28, had made the dungeon a little too hard for level 25 Nashuya. She did level there, and got her first pet. That pet can HURT things. Too bad it doesn’t last – and that the tainted essence used to summon it doesn’t replenish as fast as you would like to use pets.

I camped the Mothers of Mayhem out at some random tunnel where no creature roams because I just had to sleep. Since it’s in an instance, I imagine we’ll appear outside Splitpaw and start from the start again.

Sure, I could have gathered information about Splitpaw first, known just what to do, but so few times do you get a chance to try something that challenges you. We spent several hours crawling in a dangerous dungeon, died lots, loot wasn’t that great, didn’t achieve the goal of getting to the quest area, didn’t know about exploding barrels to start, or which things could be blown up… Didn’t know anything.

Still had fun. But tonight, Dera will mentor Nashuya and maybe we’ll get a dungeon a little easier to manage. Groups of level 29 critters… ouch. Just ouch.

Dryroot has left the South Pacific and joined a Germanic region with left-leaning politics. I THINK DDR stands for “Deutsche Demokratische Republik”, but that is probably a) not what it stands for, and b) poorly spelled.

Nonetheless, it’s a small region where I can make a dent on some charts. South Pacific is just too huge.

This is their advertisement:

For anyone interested into moving into this region: just send me a message, preferredly in either English or German, though Dutch, French and Russian are also allowed, and after brief evaluation, I’ll reply as fast as I can… Note that any non-left UN-members will have to wait until a left UN-majority is installed before admission. This is meant to ensure that the socialist (left) character of the region is maintain in its UN voting behaviour.

New flag for Dryroot. The Wheel represents Dryroot’s nomadic roots. The chocobo represents lunch. The green represents the grasslands through which we roamed, before Dryroot became a barren, inhospitable landscape.

Dryroot has an Upper and a Lower Parliament. The Prime Minister, Tarena Schlosschild, addressed the Upper Parliament this morning. I’ll have a transcript up later.

The “Anti-Government Hour” is really a big hit among radio listeners, and has improved Dryroot’s political freedom index…